


Puppy Love

by SensationalSunburst



Series: Puppy Love [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canonical Character Death, Dogs sense evil, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, nyxnoctocolypse, nyxnoctweek, puppies!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-19 00:38:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11302137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SensationalSunburst/pseuds/SensationalSunburst
Summary: "Nyx, shut up! Look!”With his back mostly turned, Noctis had unzipped his hoodie and carefully turned to reveal a tiny, square shaped head poking out from against his chest.The puppy barked once and wiggled itself upwards to lick away the rainwater still streaming down Noctis’s face.





	1. Pupper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aithilin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/gifts), [CkyKing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CkyKing/gifts), [JazzRaft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/gifts).



> Howdy!  
> I'd like to thank the Horsemen of the Nyx/Noct ship for prompting this, as it's Nyx/Noct week in the little rarepair that could. They (Aithilin, CkyKing, Jasper_Raven, daemon, ect..) put out such beautiful work, like, all the time, that I felt inspired to try my hand at something they have so clearly mastered. It's no so much a gift, as an offering at this point. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Noctis was late.

Noctis was _never_ late. Despite his reputation, despite being the earthly embodiment of sleepy fury he was when awoken and his proclivity for falling asleep at literally any time (or anywhere as Nyx had unfortunately discovered), he was never late. If he was running even a minute behind schedule he sent out a little text of warning.

 _Traffic :(_  

Or

_Running behind_

So, the little prince’s radio silence, even if he was just 7 minutes (7 minutes and 42 seconds) late, was unusual, and things that were unusual were suspicious. Outside, thunder rumbled through the streets and the near torrential downpour of the storm that beat against his windows had chased the usual crowd bustling from one colorful bodega to the next inside; only the sound of the occasional car rumbling past on uneven cobblestone disrupted the storm overhead.

The sound of a key fumbling in his lock knocked Nyx from his path, pacing back and forth in front of his largest window. He was at the door fast enough that he wouldn’t have been surprised to find his kukri wedged in the doorframe. But he took a moment to pause, breathe deeply and wipe the worry from the line of his eyebrows before he opened the door, allowing a smile to warm his face as he swept his eyes over his absolutely drenched prince.

The smile and most of his color drained from his face however, when he took in Noctis’s pinched expression, the way he hadn’t pushed past him into the apartment and most glaring of all, the way he was holding himself; hunched over with his arms wrapped protectively around his chest.

“Are you hurt? What happened!?” Nyx’s finger flew to press against the comm device usually placed in his ear, desperate to call for backup.

“No, I-”

“Let me see.” Nyx reached for Noctis's chest but the prince shyed away. “Noctis-”

“ _Oh my Gods,_  shut up and look!"

With his back mostly turned, Noctis had unzipped his black hoodie and turned around slowly to reveal a tiny, square shaped head poking out from against his chest.

The puppy barked once and wiggled itself upwards to lick away the rainwater still streaming down Noctis’s face. White tipped paws found purchase on the edge of his hoodie and it made it halfway from its safe haven before Noctis caught it to cradle it against his chest, still curled inward, braced  for Nyx's rejection.

“Noct… babe.”

“They just threw her out of the car, Nyx. A _moving_ car. I sent the license plate to Cor but I couldn't leave her.”

Noctis turned his deadliest weapon upon Nyx and lowered his head to look up at him through his absurdly thick lashes.

The puppy was tiny, some sort of pit, with blue grey fur and a set of eyes blue enough to rival his own. But its paws, dipped in white like it was wearing socks, were big and it was clear that it would grow into a sizable animal. For now it fit perfectly against the curve of Noctis’s throats where he cradled it, smiling helplessly as it continued to lick at every possible square inch of his face that it could reach.

“I'm not home enough to take care of a dog, Noct.” Nyx sighed.

“I'll watch her when you're working and you can watch her when I have… stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“Yeah… stuff.”

“And what when we're both busy?” Nyx crossed his arms across his chest, attempting not to be distracted by the dizzying effect of how tight Noctis’s soaked jeans clung to his legs and the obscene (on purpose, Nyx knew) pout forming on his lips.

“Ignis will watch her. Won't he, Princess?” Noctis cooed down at the puppy, who barked and whined in response.

“You already named it?”

“Her.” Noct corrected and lifted the puppy up and out to lick at Nyx’s face. He struggled to keep his expression neutral as the dog's tongue lapped dangerously close to his mouth.

“You can even train her. She's smart, I can tell.” Noct pulled the puppy back towards himself as Nyx's lips twitched, the elder struggling to maintain his farce.

But the battle had been lost the moment Nyx had seen Noctis’s rare, sincere grin as he tickled the puppy’s belly.

“If it shits on the floor, you're cleaning it up.”

“Sure!” Noct laughed, bounding forward, to smile against Nyx's lips.

(He didn't clean it up.)


	2. Doggo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Screaming
> 
> Thank you all so much for your feedback! It's super scary but like, y'all are givin' me life.

Princess hated Drautos.

When she was a puppy, falling over her own oversized paws as she tried in vain to keep up with Nyx as he warped about the practice field until Crowe swept her into her arms, it was funny.  Drautos would step into the arena and look down at the snarling bundle of blue grey fur with a tired expression.

“Dogsitting for his Highness?” He drawled, hands clasped behind his back.

Nyx smirked, “Protecting the members of the royal family is my duty, sir.”

But nobody missed the leather cord wrapped in a bow around her Lucian black collar, embroidered with skulls. Just like how nobody missed that the ankles of Nyx’s uniforms were sprinkled with dog hair most days, especially when he was coming in from a day off duty. As Princess grew older, and bigger and bigger and bigger, the teeth she bared at the captain of the Kingsglaive were a bit more problamatic. The bite of a hundred and ten pound dog was far more threatening than that of the five pound puppy, after all.

But she came to heel when Noctis called and mindfully kept herself to the King’s left side and so for the most part, her random bouts of aggression were laughed at and dismissed.

(“It’s… ok?” Noctis had asked, stunned when his father hadn’t so much as blinked at the puppy wiggling in his arms. Princess was licking the air preemptively as the King approached, ready to lay a thick layer of sticky affection against the monarch’s hands.  Regis smiled and hooked his finger under the puppy’s chin.

“As long as it is taken care of.” He’s replied evenly, “As I suspect this shall be the only grandchild I’m likely to get. Isn’t that right, Sir Ulric.”

Nyx, stationed at the door, had choked on air.)

Even Libertus was wary of her sometimes, but Nyx had told him that it was only because she could sense that he still held a level of animosity towards the prince. ("Dogs can sense evil." He's laughed.) Alone, or in the company of the others Princess was fine. She kept her distance, preferring to sit wrapped around Nyx’s feet or next to Crowe's chair, as she routinely fed her scraps, but the second Noctis arrived, Princess moved to the prince’s side and stayed there, never growling, only bearing her teeth whenever Libertus came near.

She took to the training regimen Ignis and Nyx had designed like a dream. She walked off leash, barked on command and was good enough of a guard dog for Gladio to affectionately call her the “little shield.” Prompto of course, was in love as well, and had formed an entire photo album dedicated to her. Selfies of himself and Princess when he kidnapped her for a run. Shots of Noctis, smiling as bright as the sun as Princess licked at his face, candid shots of Gladio carrying her, all one hundred and something pounds, like a baby against his hip. Ignis cooking in Noct’s apartment with Princess waiting at his side for the inevitable moment that he slipped her a scrap. His favorite however, was a shot of Nyx looking down at Noctis, affection so bright in his expression as the prince had pressed his nose against Princess's, that he'd printed off a copy and slide it into Nyx's hands on his birthday. 

Princess the Pitbull slept curled at the end of the bed in Nyx’s apartment when Noctis was there, or when the prince was away, tucked against the glaive’s side, nose buried into his armpit. And still, despite it all, Princess was always “Noct’s dog” whenever anyone asked.

She was “Noct’s dog” when Nyx dropped her off for the day at Noct’s apartment, or his chambers in the Citadel, “Noct’s dog” when she grew jealous of Nyx stealing all of the prince’s attention and forced her way between them to shower him with kisses, “Noct’s dog” when she pushed silently but steadily against his calves whenever the Captain approached to chat.

She was Noct’s dog, until Nyx almost didn’t come home.

Nyx couldn’t really remember what happened. Everything was running about as smoothly as it could against the Empire’s manufactured monsters, the line was holding, they were making progress, Crowe was bitching about something or other just behind him, hurling lightning bolts and curses in turn. He remembered a shout, a flash of light and then?

He remembered waking in transport, he remembered his hands were dripping wet, remembered that his entire body seemed to be twitching, dancing to a beat he could not hear. Crowe had his head in her hands, forcing his head down and still. But everything sounded wrong, distant and foggy, it was too dark, too hazy for mid-day. And although he could feel something warm, and sticky and wet against his palms everything else was cold.

 _Keep your eyes open, you fucking_ idiot _._

He remembered trying to say something, but his tongue was heavy in his mouth, flopping uselessly against his teeth. His mouth felt like it was filled with cotton, muffling the flippant remark he was aiming for. Libertus appeared above him, gnawing on his bottom lip like he had as a kid, but his eyes were too bright, too watery for a victory ride home.

When he blinked next he was in the hospital. Curled on the bed beside him, her bulk tucked into the smallest ball she was capable was Princess and asleep next to her, both hands tangled in his own was Noctis.

(A new magitech weapon, he was told later, specifically designed to disrupt the magic of the crystal.)

When a nurse poked her head into his room, the look on her face indicated that Noctis and Princess had somehow managed to sneak in under her nose, _somehow,_ seeing as how the Crown Prince usually didn't do much sneaking anywhere.

But when she spotted Princess on the bed beside him, the dog's bright blue eyes warily watching where the nurse was stationed at the doorway, Nyx settled one bandaged hand (what had even happened?) on top of Princess's head, causing the dog to turn her gaze to her bleary eyed master and smiled up at the nurse.

"Sorry," He lied, "My dog’s kinda protective. Don't worry, she doesn't bite."

Which, he figured, wasn't exactly a lie.

After that, Princess was _'their'_ dog.

She still hated Drautos.

She hated him through the peace negotiations, teeth bared as she sat just out of view at Clarus’s side. The Shield was unsure what to do with the bundle of unhappy energy, as scratching behind her ears didn’t seem to distract her as it had in the past. Princess hated Drautos as she stepped, not for the first time, between him and Nyx as the Captain gave the less than subtle suggestion that Nyx read up on the news. She hated Drautos when she stood crying and whining beside Nyx on the steps of the Citadel and watched as the Regalia sailed away over the blacktop. But Nyx didn't really understand why until much later.

Of course, it'd been much too late by then.

By then, as the fire of a magic far beyond anything he'd ever be able to control burned and cracked through his skin and he struggled to simply breathe he didn't have time to reflect on the irony. As he burned hotter than the Infernian, scorching from the inside out in the first rays of a new dawn amongst the rubble and ruin of the last home he'd ever known, Princess's whines fell on deaf ears. But her tongue, where she nosed at the hand just barely keeping him upright was shockingly cold and he used the last of his energy to cut the purple feathered ribbon from his arm and tie it in an approximation of a bow around her collar. She looked more grey than blue now, covered in soot and ash from wherever she'd escaped to in the chaos and there was a sluggishly bleeding line of blood drying on her back.

"Good girl--" Nyx let his face fall forward to her forehead, unable to lift his hands to rub behind her ears, her high pitched whine only just broke through the clouds in his mind. "--Go find Daddy."

But Princess waited. She nudged Nyx’s limp arm up and around herself to curl into the curve of his side. She waited until Nyx’s labored breathing grew quiet and until the chest she had rested her head upon grew still.  She waited and she cried until the sun had risen high in the sky and there was no one there to wait with.

Princess eventually found her boy at Hammerhead. Cindy had spotted her limping down the road from the still burning wreckage of Insomnia, paws burnt from scorching pavement, covered in ash and road dust and sticky with blood.  But Princess was not vicious, despite how cautiously Cindy approached or how Cid hovered over her shoulder until he’d spotted the skull motif on her frayed collar.

“It’s Noct’s dog.” Cid said, holding out his hand. Princess barked once, recognizing the name and shuffled forward to press her head firmly into his hand.

“Go call ‘em up. Tell ‘em we found her.” Cid instructed and lead the dog inside for a desperately needed bath and meal.

The boys screamed into the parking lot a few hours later, Noctis at the wheel, and he leapt from the vehicle, leaving it running despite Ignis’s shouts about parking brakes and took off at a sprint for the lump of gunmetal fur curled in the shade at Cid’s side.

With her feet wrapped up in little strips of bandages, Princess’s gait was awkward, but she met her boy halfway across the parking lot as he crashed to his knees.

“Where is he? Where’s Daddy?” Noctis cooed, hands shaking as she licked at the entirety of his face. But he already knew.

He’d known when his phone went straight to voicemail. The ripped and tattered stripe of purple fabric, stained with fingerprints that had long since oxidized to brown wrapped clumsily around her collar only confirmed it.


	3. Doggo Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I said there was one more chapter left? I lied, this is a little interlude while I work on the actual last chapter.  
> <3  
> Again, this goes out to the Horsemen. 
> 
> As a wise Tumblarina once said, "No editing, we die like men."

Despite how much money Gladio had spent on the tent, it wasn't exactly large. And the addition of Princess, Noct and Nyx's (as the dog was still _theirs_ ) one hundred and some odd pound blue pit bull, only made it that much smaller.

And despite how Noctis had curled in on himself, coiled like a spring to keep from touching anyone the night after reclaiming his dog in Hammerhead's parking lot; after learning for certain that Nyx Ulric had perished in the siege of Insomnia, Ignis could still feel him shaking. He could hear the steady thump of Princess’s tail against the camping mats, her distressed, quiet whines as Noctis tried to stifle his uneven breathing against her neck.

Ignis heart _ached_ at the sound.

Eventually, Noctis gave up and stood, stooping low and silently easing his way past where Ignis feigned sleep to slip on his boots and out of the tent, holding the flap open for Princess to follow. As the dog stood and stretched, she stared across the gap left by Noctis directly into Ignis's eyes, startling blues eyes boring into his own or a moment that felt too long, too human.

He felt like he was being judged before she let out a huff and trotted out of the tent.

As soon as the flap closed, Gladio propped himself up on one arm and shot Ignis an expectant look. Ignis nodded and sat up, knowing that Prompto, the only one asleep where he was curled under Gladio's extended arm, would not be roused by anything short of gunfire.

But Noctis was not outside of the tent as Ignis had hoped; instead from across the short stretch of desert separating their Haven from the road, he watched as the Regalia's internal light clicked off.

As expected, when he opened the door to the backseat of the car it was to the sound of Noctis's quiet, gasping sobs.

“Dear Noctis.” Ignis said, closing the door behind him. Princess was curled against her boy’s chest, head tucked under his chin. He'd wrapped shaking arms around her neck, one hand rubbing the most prominent blood stain on the purple ribbon wrapped around her collar, but he looked up through his dark bangs as Ignis settled himself on the other side of the car, braced against the door on the floor and opened his arms.

Diverting Noctis's attention away from Princess wasn’t a way to win the dog's affection, as evidenced by the offended grumble she made as Noctis immediately crawled across the floorboards into his arms, but Ignis was willing to live with the consequences as the trio reorganized themselves and Noctis burst into loud, proper tears. Princess, unable to find room for herself in the space between Ignis and Noctis, had thrown herself bodily atop Ignis outstretched leg, allowing her to put a single paw upon Noctis as he shook to pieces in Ignis arms.

“I am so sorry.”

The prince breathed in deeply, trying obviously to regain some level of control but his exhale devolved almost immediately in a hitching whine.

“I-- I loved him, Iggy.”

“I know.” Ignis said softly, “I know you did.”

“I could have made him come with us--” He cried, pressing his face firmly into Ignis's chest. Princess whined and tried to wiggle closer, tripping over her feet in the confined space as she pressed her weight painfully into Ignis's knee as she made to comfort her prince.

“No, Noctis, do not attempt to blame yourself. There was nothing anyone could have done.”

“They're gone…” He whispered, quiet with the horror of it, “All of them. I-- Gods, I know it, D-- Dad and… and Crowe and _all_ of them if Nyx is… Nyx's is _gone_ \--”

“Yes.” Ignis said gently, because he couldn't lie and tell him that it was alright. It wasn't and it would never be quite alright again. _Noctis_ would never be quite alright again.

Perhaps he was just waiting for external confirmation, but the verbal affirmation of his loss hadn't finished falling from Ignis's lips before Noctis seemed to shatter. The arms wrapped around him came loose and curled inward to grip at his own shirt above where his heart was visibly breaking. Noctis went limp in Ignis's grasp, as if the force of his new wave of tears had rendered him incapable of doing anything else.

“We-- we could have had forever, he said forever,” Noctis gasped, “I should have known then, should have-- ”

“There is no such thing as what one ‘should’ have done,” Ignis said, shifting his hand up to smooth it through Noctis’s hair, “Stop attempting to shift blame to yourself.”

Noctis didn’t, or more accurately, couldn’t reply through the heaving sobs. But he didn’t try to speak again and so Ignis simply held on, and prayed to Gods he was certain weren’t listening to give the boy a _break_.

Eventually, Noctis quieted, his sobs turning to pitiful sniffles and then to the soft sound of his particular brand of opened mouth snores. And Ignis, for the first time since Noctis was a child, carried him back to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


	4. Woofer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, no editing. We publish and perish like men. 
> 
> However, I do want to thank everyone for your support and your amazing comments. Your feedback is just so, so important to me and I've had a blast writing for this amazing fandom. 
> 
> Again, special thanks to the Horsemen of the Nyx/Noct ship, for inspiration. 
> 
> Please, enjoy!

Princess pawed at the seat of Cor’s truck, eager to be down on the ground, but well aware of the pain that would accompany the leap from the seat down to the pavement. These days, her joints ached the longer she was up and about and she was content to spend her time lounging like the royalty she was. 

The one and only vet left in Lestallum had scratched under Princess’s chin as she surmised that Princess’s fall as a puppy, coupled with her occasional outings as a hunter had resulted in a mild form of arthritis. Which, according to the vet, would only get worse with age. So Cor dutifully helped the dog, which still weighed a metric ton, to the pavement so she could jog over to where Ignis was waiting beside the door to Takka’s.

A decade of darkness had done little to dim the dog’s disposition, and Ignis smiled as he heard the excited click clacking of her nails against the concrete of the improvised base. Princess was, as Ignis insisted, the current reigning monarch until Noctis returned, and as such, she was granted the ability to switch caretakers at will. It was odd at first, at least to Cor, who along with Iris took care of Princess most of the time, that she seemed to know exactly who was in need of her comfort the most. It was rare that the boys were all in Lestallum at the same time, but it seemed as though they seemed to appear just as she, for lack of a better term, got antsy. Princess would huff and sigh, looking forlornly at the door of his apartment, never scratching, and wait for him to get the hint that she wanted to take a walk through the city's overcrowded streets. She’d insist on resting on the benches overlooking the darkened valley for hours, looking, in Cor’s opinion, for her next chosen retinue to arrive.

At first, it was Prompto, who quite clearly wanted to escape from reminders of Noctis. But Princess kept leaping into the cab of the car he’d acquired and, when he tried to remove her, threw her not inconsiderable weight into his lap and whined. Next, Cor spotted the dog trailing alongside Ignis on the outskirts of Lestallum, a perfect shadow to the advisor, dutifully carrying what appeared to be a grocery bag in her mouth. Then, a month later, she was watching over Gladio as he and Iris attempted to build a greenhouse on the cape.

However, Cor’s attention was taken from the sight of Ignis bending to give Princess a hunk of jerky by the familiar, if impossible, sound of rattling beads. He’d heard it too often to mistake it; he’d heard that sound fly past him on practice runs through a dusty training arena, blitzing by on daemon-blood soaked hardtack. It had once heralded a booming laugh, a lopsided smirk, the imminent disappearance of a love-struck prince.

Once.

But the owner of those beads and the braids they had once swung in was long gone. Lost in burning wreckage, leaving behind a broken heart and dog with a scar to match her only remaining owner.

Wherever that owner may _actually_ be.

That sound though, the gentle clinking of wood and metal, followed Princess around. And in some terrible way, it made perfect sense that Nyx fucking Ulric would haunt his dog. But Cor had, in the words of Prompto, _seen some shit,_ and so he honestly wasn’t surprised when he finally figured it out.

It was, as far as Cor could tell, something that the trio didn't talk about. But he'd watched Gladiolus look around himself, startled, watched Prompto twitch and Ignis stiffen in surprise long enough to know that they heard it too.

As Cor watched, Ignis’s arm froze in place where he was scratching just behind Princess ear before a small, sad smile drifted momentarily across his face, having undoubtedly heard the rattling once again for himself.

“Seems you’re the chosen one this time around.” Cor said as he approached.

Ignis’s smile was almost painful, “What I wouldn't give for that to be true.”

“Aw man, I _just_ stocked up on treats!” Prompto whined, stepping out from Takka’s. He spread his arms and Princess perked up to trot over to allow him to pet her. Again, Cor heard the sound of beads, fainter this time, and both Ignis and Prompto seemed to have heard it as well.

Below them all, Princess suddenly sat and tilted her head left to right her ears flopping with the movement as  her eyes tracking something they could not see. She made no move to follow it and turned her attention back to Prompto as whatever she had been watching seemingly moved inside.

“You know, I--” Pormpto gestured to Princess with both hands beeseechingly, “-- I hate when you do that, girl. It’s a little freaky.”

“Iris’s cat does that too.” Gladiolus gently nudged his shoulder into Ignis as he came from the back of the restaurant. “What's really freaky is that they're both watching the same thing.”

“And what’s that.” Cor asked.

“A ghost.” Gladio shrugged, and the movement echoed in the men who now stood on either side of him. The subtle shift of their shoulders a silent agreement.

“Be that as it may--”

But then the radio on Cor’s hip had come to life, and Talcott stuttered and sputtered into the darkness that the Dawn was on the horizon.

\--

Cor Leonis stooped to Princess out the cab of Talcott's truck after the solemn ride to the ruins of Insomnia. She'd been left behind, yet again, as Noctis had wandered without her. She’d been pressed against his calf, desperate to be in his arms from the moment he’d touched down in Hammerhead and he had, from what Cor had seen from his perch atop the lookout tower above the base, sat against the wall of Cid’s, now Cindy’s, garage and allowed the dog to throw the entirely of her body mass against his chest as he spent a few scant hours with his brothers. His hands, Cor had noticed, continuously traced the collar on the dog’s neck where Gladio had punched holes to properly braid the remnants of Nyx’s uniform against the sturdy leather.

The next “day”, when Cor had been forced to pull over as a blast of blinding light shot out from the heart of Insomnia, Princess had begun crying in earnest. Iris and Talcott, who were sharing the burden of the old hound’s weight, were unable to soothe her and as Iris’s eyes began to water, Cor had a pretty good idea of what that meant.

Princess was now the last remaining Caelum.

He knew that she was the only one left as they were forced to exit the truck and make their way on foot through the decimation trailing back through the throne room. He knew it when Princess, who hadn't barked in a decade; yipped, scratchy and low, at the base of the Citadel's cracked stairs and hobbled up them with a speed she hadn't managed in years.

But Cor had let her go, instead distracted by the trio of bodies sprawled along the steps that Princess had only paused to sniff at, too used to the scent of death to be distracted for long. She was mindless of the blood her paws tracked up the stairs with her, following a path with a single minded focus.

The sound of beads was absent, the city utterly silent in the blinding rays of morning, except for the hitching sobs of Iris and Talcott behind him. Monica would be arriving soon, he knew, so they wouldn’t be alone for long as he went to confirm what he already knew.  

Cor followed bloody paw prints into the throne room, up past what once was an intimidating set of beautifully carved stairs. He kept his eyes on Princess’s crimson pawprints as they picked their way around rubble and debris, weak in his inability to look up to face the inevitable end of the bread trail until his eyes landed on Princess, curled atop her master’s feet as if in sleep.

She'd laid there, atop his shoes, heedless of the blood pooling around her, or the way her once snow white paws were stained red. She ignored the blood still weeping down throne from the sword ( _Gods,_ Regis’s _sword)_ embedded in the upholstery. Her eyes were closed, face peaceful, a perfect mirror of the King hanging limply in his throne above her.

“Princess?” Cor said.

“Come. Heel. _Heel._ ” He even tried the command in the soft Galahdian he'd once heard Nyx use.

For the first and last time, Princess did not obey.

His next inhale was a shuddering, uneven impersonation of a breath. It did nothing to fill his lungs, or clear out the darkness crowding the edges of his vision. But he swallowed through the hollowing of his chest, clamped down on the scream just as he had before. He'd buried two kings, a third should be no different.

(But it was, his mind whispered. It was, this was, _he_ was.)

The rumble of an airship overhead indicated Aranea and therefore Monica's arrivals. They, he knew, would take care of the boys outside.

But Noctis?

Noctis he would take care of himself, as he'd promised Regis he would.

His hands did not shake when he gripped to handle of the blade, didn't shake when he tugged once, hard, to dislodge it. But it was stuck fast, deep within the boy’s chest. Cor allowed himself a growl, allowed his shoulders to slump for a fraction of a moment before he planted his right foot against the armrest of the Heart of Lucis, wrapped both hands, now _definitely_ shaking, around the hilt of the sword and _pulled._

The sound would stay with him for the rest of his life.

He hurled the sword behind him with enough force to knock himself off balance and teetered, nearly falling backwards, arms beginning to windmill until a sharp tug on his pant leg righted him. Hope swelled in his chest as glanced down and took in Princess at his knee. He was halfway down, bending to scratch behind her floppy ears when he noticed that the scar cutting jaggedly across her back was gone.

Her muzzle was missing the dusting of gray.

Her collar was a simple braid of black and amethyst leather.

She barked, just once, but Cor could not hear it. Nor could he hear the sound of her nails as she turned, walking past the corpse of the dog atop her boy's feet and sprinted down the stairs. When he stood, forcing trembling legs to straighten, he couldn't hear the laughter that was falling from King Noctis Lucis Caelum’s mouth as he opened his arms to his dog’s enthusiastic greeting.

In his peripheral vision, Cor could still see the slumped, lifeless body of the last King of Lucis crumpled against his throne.

And yet, at the base of dais, Nyx Ulric was pulling Noctis to his feet, burying his hands in his hair. Before his eyes, age melted off of Noctis’s form, the raiment his corpse wore glistening blue before falling into the fatigues he’d favored on his journey. Noctis was cupping his glaive's face, as young as the day he died and free of the confinement of his uniform, in his hands, their foreheads pressed together with Princess dancing around their legs.  

Behind them, casting no shadows where they stood in the doorway of the throne room, was Ignis, Prompto and Gladio, smiling and young and alive, even though Cor had _checked_. He’d closed the eyes that stared unseeingly at the sun rising over Insomnia, felt for a pulse on cooling skin.

Cor risked a glance down at himself, halfway expecting to see that he too was shimmering with the same bluish light as the people assembled below him. Checking to see if he too, had passed. But his shaking hands found nothing but unbroken skin, even through the blood caked them.

Prompto moved forward, a silent two step that should have echoed ominously in the marbled room, and made to speak until Nyx, expression so warm, so filled with _love_ that it knocked the breath from Cor, crashed his lips into Noctis's. The trio turned their backs sheepishly and walked away, and the moment their feet hit the threshold of the room, they disappeared, evaporating into luminescent crystalline shards in the light of a new dawn.

Nyx pulled back and smiled, tugging the just slightly smaller Noctis in to cradle him against his chest. He seemed to melt, relaxing completely, even as Princess leaned against the back of his legs. Nyx’s eyes slipped open from where they had closed in what Cor would only assume was bliss and looked up directly at him.  

They locked eyes for a long moment, and Cor could think of nothing at all to say. What was there even to say? Stay? Give them back? At least let me keep Princess? He could never ask. They’d done enough, _sacrificed_ enough. He would never ask them to stay when they looked so happy now.

So, with what he hoped passed as a smile, Cor pressed his fist over his heart and tipped forward; a Crownsguard bow. Nyx smirked, the expression gentler than he remembered  and nodded and between one blink and the next, they drifted away, the light of their bodies floating towards the sun like flower petals.


End file.
